JH: . . . I would feel justified in "ranting" about the effects of the wealth gap which I can see with my own eyes (e.g. extreme inequities in housing, inequities in access to health care, inequities in exposure to toxic industrial discharge) whether I had access to these numbers or not. . . .
I wasn't talking about feeling justified. I was talking about having a greater political impact. Details in this context, in my experience, heighten the interest of an audience because of their specificity. They also amplify the possibility that you are some kind of expert and may actually know what you are talking about (even if you don't).
In policy terms, information like this is a prerequiste to doing something. If I am promoting a wealth tax, let's say to replace some other tax I don't like, it helps to know how much revenue I can raise for a given tax rate.
One reason information on wealth is relatively scarce in the U.S. is because rich people understand this. I'm told that in Europe the situation is infinitely worse. On privacy grounds (entirely bogus ones), information is withheld and makes it impossible to do what is routinely done in the U.S. -- estimate the distribution of the tax burden.
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I agree that "numbers seem to have an inordinate impact in political
discourse" and that they probably should in an ideal political world. The
problem is that the numbers (and interpretations of the numbers) primarily
relevant in policy circles are not those provided by the EPI, but by
mainstream and conservative economic think tanks whose ideological agenda
is shaped by their major contributors, mostly major corporations and
foundations.
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Actually if you look at the Heritage and Cato web sites, you don't find all that much empirical work. Nothing remote approaching Citizens for Tax Justice tax modelling, or EPI's labor market work. There's a group in Texas with a comical econometric model. Mostly the right produces statements of doctrine. Of course, to some extent they don't need to. They have the Dallas Fed, for instance.
I don't think I used the word "objective" in re: data. They are right ways, wrong ways, and duplicitous ways to answer questions. that's as metaphysical as I'd care to get.
mbs